"The child who fell from the sky" characteristically named the photo that the amateur photographer John Gilpin failed to capture at his airport Sydney.
He intended to take pictures of airplane take-offs on that frothy day, February 22, 1970, but his lens caught a black seabass.
The news of the agencies wrote that a 14-year-old Australian, a Keith Sapsford, made a hole in the runways of Sydney airport and hid in the wheels of an aircraft bound for Tokyo.
It was the last decision he would make in his life. Shortly after take off, the little one would fall to the ground from a height of 60 meters. He was killed instantly.
Except that the news usually has no face. While Keith Sapsford had. This is the story of…
Most teens would not really long to go to boarding school at Catholic Preparatory School, and 14-year-old Keith Sapsford was a typical teenager of his day.
When he realized he had no choice, he decided to drop out of school after just a few weeks of classes. He wanted to take life into his own hands, to know how the rest of the world lives.
With no money in his pocket, he thought of this way to go as far Japan, a design that was not exactly his. Or just his own. The involuntary inspiration came from his father's lips.
Some time ago, Charles Sapsford warned his always adventurous and dreamy son about the dangers of traveling away from home at such an age.
Wanting to warn him, he told him the story of a child from Spain who was killed when he exploded from his home and hid in the wheels of an airplane. How can he expect his story to have such an impact on the little one? How can he expect that in February 1970 his child would know a similarly tragic fate?
The little one had looked into the matter, as we learn from the then media reports Australia. He was sure he would escape the danger by staying inside the wheel well. And that's where he hid.
What he did not know and unfortunately made the difference was that the well would reopen when the plane picked up its wheels. And sixty meters above the ground, the landing gear hatch reopened…
Born in 1956, Keith Sapsford grew up in a Sydney suburb. His father, Charles Sapsford, was a university engineering teacher. After the tragic event, he described his son as a curious child, always inspired by "the urge to move".
And to quench his thirst, they had just returned from a family trip to abroad. But returning home, the adventurous little one was already planning his next trip. As if Australia could not fit him, said the happy father.
He also said in an interview that they did not know what to do with him. So they decided to send him to a Roman Catholic school, believing that discipline and a strict schedule would suit him.
There was one such school (Boys' Town), in southern Sydney, that had experience with children with behavioral problems.
It was the best opportunity they had to "straighten the little one", as his parents typically said. But he was much more indomitable than those around him expected. And he managed to pop it out of it school very easily.
Just weeks after class began, Keith jumped over the school fence and drilled into Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport.
We do not know if he hid in that Japanese Airlines plane because he specifically wanted to go to Tokyo. But it was the last decision he would make in his short life.
Keith was officially running away from school and everyone was looking for him. And since we are talking about the 1970s, their regulations airports and the security restrictions were not exactly as they are today.
This allowed the toddler to easily find a way out of the runways. A Douglas DC-8 was already in place to board the public. Keith saw the opportunity he was looking for.
By pure luck, amateur photographer John Gilpin was there, in the right place at the right time. He took pictures of planes taking off and landing, hoping some would turn out well.
He did not realize it when he was taking his pictures, he saw it later, the next week, when he showed them. He had caught the teenager's tragic fall in the film. When the manhole was opened to pick up the wheels, the young man's fate was sealed.
The image of Keith falling into the void had reached all over the world. "All my child wanted to do was see the world," his father told the Associated Press the next day (February 23, 1970). "His determination to see how the rest of the world lived cost him his life."
Realizing what had happened, experts and authorities inspected it aircraft and found fingerprints, as well as threads from the child's clothes, inside the wheel well. No one had any doubt where he spent his last moments.
Worse still perhaps, it is rather unlikely that he had survived into the well even if he had not fallen to the ground. Extremely cold temperatures and severe oxygen deprivation would probably have cost him his life. They found him on the ground in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt.
He died at the age of 14 on February 22, 1970.
Gilpin observed this human figure falling from the plane with his feet down and his arms open, as if they wanted to be grabbed by something, just a week after the incident.
It remains a creepy reminder of a life lost prematurely. And unfortunately she is not the only one. National report civil aviation service The US FAA concluded in 2015 that only one in four smugglers survived the flight. And these flights are usually short and low altitude.
Historically, 96 such smuggling attempts have been recorded in the wheel well between 1947-2012, in 85 flights. Of those 96 people, 73 lost their lives and 23 survived.
In one of the most recent, two men drilled into the plane take-off system from Johannesburg to London in 2015. One died there and the other was rescued in a hospital in the British capital as soon as he escaped.
And that seemed to be the only consolation to the Sapsford family, that their son might have died earlier than his fall. His father always believed that Keith lost his life from the wheels that were collected and not from the fall.
This is how Charles Sapsford passed away in 2015, at the age of 93, believing that his son would not have succeeded as well as his plan…
